Honda sold only 31 units of the City sedan last month, production curtailed for new car?

Honda India sold only 31 units of the City sedan in October as compared to 2,043 units in September, a decline of 98 per cent in just a month! This is a very surprising development as the City sedan was literally the single model that kept Honda afloat before the launch of the Amaze diesel. The Honda City sales averaged around 2,500 to 3,000 units even at a time when petrol prices were inching towards their high point in 2012.

The first reason, we believe, for this change is that Honda has cut down production of the City sedan in a bid to free up its assembly line for the Amaze. The Japanese automaker’s official website says that they have 1,00,000 units per annum production capacity at their Noida plant and at this rate of demand, they would need almost the whole plant for a year to complete just the Amaze’s order book. Honda had previously discontinued the Civic and the Jazz to free up production capacity. 

 The more plausible reason and the one we are interested in is that Honda is likely to unveil a new City for the Indian market on November 25 and this will have a diesel engine option as well. Such a development means that Honda has stopped manufacturing the sedan and consequently dealers have stopped stocking up on the sedan. The 31 units are then likely to be the last of the dealer deliveries, before the all-new version is rolled out. 

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